Beauty blooms in Zoya Sakr’s fragrant world, The Flower Society. The serial entrepreneur spreads a sense of beauty and vitality via her newly founded house.
Photo: Sam Allison. Vogue Arabia, January 2023
When the doors opened to the Jumeirah Mina A’ Salam ballroom – the location for the December 2022 Vogue Ball of Arabia – 250 guests seemed to exhale as pink bounced off their wonder-filled eyes. For before them, rows of tables were lined with dozens of bouquets of magenta-hued roses. The simple but impactful arrangement is a French way of presenting flowers, and it is also the signature of Zoya Sakr, founder of The Flower Society, who filled the rooms with her open blooms. In the ballroom, Sakr appeared in a similar nature. Her blonde hair neatly coiffed in an elegant blow-dry while her porcelain skin created a perfect yin-yang with the black velvet of her long dress. If ballrooms and desert oases are where one can now recognize Sakr’s work, her drawing board is in her intimate, Dubai-based creative space pictured on these pages. Here, the entrepreneur and mother-of-three imagines blossoming, ephemeral worlds for the region’s seekers of luxury.
Photo: Sam Allison. Vogue Arabia, January 2023
Photo: Sam Allison. Vogue Arabia, January 2023
“My happy place, where I focus most on company strategy, on enhancing my team, and connecting with people I work with,” says Sakr joyfully of her headquarters. The Dubai-based founder of The Flower Society launched her company last fall and already counts Cartier, Fauré Le Page, Jo Malone, Chopard, and Vogue Arabia among her clients. In her own office, she blends human and natural art, sharing, “I have chosen different art pieces to add to my office to give it a homey space, and red offers a contrast to the urban office style.” Sakr mentions that since she launched The Flower Society, she wanted its bouquets and arrangements to reflect grand gestures of love. Even its boxes are intended to deliver happiness and make a strong statement. She too finds intimate joy in her burgeoning craft. “Working closely with flowers gives me inner peace and takes me back to my mom’s garden in Bentael, Lebanon. This is also where dad founded a protected natural park and where I spent all my childhood, shadowing my father and his love for nature,” she explains. Her company sources its flowers from across the world, always choosing a selection of unique and quality blooms that will stand the test of time. Forever close to her Lebanese heritage and aware of its needs, she works with associations and suppliers in Lebanon who help to grow the buds and then send them to Dubai. “I want this to be a homegrown brand that will go global out of Dubai,” she says. “But at the same time, being Lebanese and seeing what’s happening in Lebanon, I will put all my resources to pay back to my home country as well.”
Photo: Sam Allison. Vogue Arabia, January 2023
Sakr arrived in Dubai in 2006. She was raised in Byblos and shares that her identity is shaped by both her Lebanese father and Russian mother. Her mother’s garden was always filled with roses and peonies. As she felt so comfortable there, she hopes her atelier will be a hub for all art lovers to visit or to have exhibitions. The space, she says, is intended for brands to collaborate with her on events and gifting. She will biannually host artists to design custom vases exclusive to The Flower Society and aims for it to branch out regionally. Her rife and diverse academic and professional background that includes studying business at Harvard, psychology, and politics, which initially led her to a successful media and production career, continues to motivate her to stay curious, share her knowledge with others, and above all, spread beauty through the senses. Today, sitting in her office on her minimalist couches in the corner where she hosts casual meetings, she feels at home. Sakr smiles, “It’s so great when it’s your business and you can make a workplace very comfortable and away from traditional meeting rooms.”
Photo: Sam Allison. Vogue Arabia, January 2023
Originally published in the January 2023 issue of Vogue Arabia
